Michel has worked at Access Health CT since the early stages of the organization. He was first hired as operations manager in March 2013. He was then named director of operations in June 2014; director of finance in June 2017; and interim CEO this June.

Prior to working at Access Health CT, he was an audit director in Aetna’s finance department for more than eight years and, before that, spent nine years as chief financial officer for the Metropolitan District Commission in Hartford.

He has a master of business administration degree from the University of Hartford. He earned his bachelor of science degree in accounting at Brooklyn College, with additional graduate work in accounting and economics.

Michel is originally from Haiti and now lives in Bloomfield with his wife and three sons. He previously served for three terms on the Bloomfield Board of Education and is currently chairman of two boards of directors — Outreach to Haiti and Jumoke Academy. He is also a member of Suffield Academy’s board of trustees.

He is a veteran of the United States Army Reserves and was honorably discharged in December 2002 as an officer after 18 years of service.

The upcoming open enrollment is the state’s sixth and is the shortest enrollment period to date.

Also on Jan. 1, Congress’ repeal of the individual mandate tax penalty, which was part of the GOP tax bill, takes effect. This means Connecticut residents will not face a federal tax penalty if they don’t have insurance in 2019.

Andrea Ravitz, Access Health CT’s director of marketing and sales, said the exchange held six focus groups this year, which included questions about the elimination of the tax penalty.

“I am happy to report that with these six groups the majority of them said the elimination of the tax penalty was not going to be something that they will take into account from a renewal or even signing-up perspective,” she said. “We can’t take that as a done deal because we know that is still going to be in people’s minds, especially when they could potentially see some increases in their monthly payments or premiums.”

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Connecticut is fortunate it hasn't been hit by a tropical-style storm since the successive storms of Irene and Sandy in 2011 and 2012 swamped the coastline, illuminating its vulnerabilities to the effects of climate change. That's because there's a general consensus that if either of those storms were to hit now, they would be just as damaging.